[Amanaduial the archer]

Zamara tried to think, her mind whirring and calculating as she stared almost angrily out of the window, her arms crossed and on forefinger thoughtfully tapping out a steady rhythm on her opposite forearm: keeping her thoughts steady and calm, trying to stop herself from panicking. Maybe the news of her death sentence and it's true horror had not yet sunk in; maybe it would not until too late. Either way, the Priestess seemed calm and collected when she next replied.

"Disturbing indeed, Prince Siamak," she murmured, frowning slightly. She sighed, almost dreamily. "I do wish Nadda had got this servant's name, just for something to make it less suspicious, even if one cannot cling to anything in these times..." Turning fluidly, Zamara looked at Siamak. "What do you think, Siamak? Should we risk it?"

Siamak frowned, shaking his head as he thought. "I think there is more to this message than meets the eye, Priestess. This servant...he did not give a name, and he then delivered a brief, mysterious message to a servant directly rather than sending the message through a chamberlain as would be more proper. An altogether secretive affair. What is more, while he did not give a name of his own-"

"- he now knows Nadda's," Zamara finished, nodding, her tone regretful. "And he knows I am here as well - she is young and easily swayed, Siamak, a trait that has been useful for us but which, I have no doubt, means that this servant left in no doubt that I am indeed here." She sighed, shaking her head, almost angrily. Nadda was perfect for the tasks they needed - simply to send messages to and fro, and to bring her what she needed discreetly. But when she was directly questioned? The young servant girl had no experience to dodge the questions as an older staff member would. But who of the older servants could be trusted now? Some had served the royal family their entire life: their livelivehood and even their lives depended on that set way of thinking. But then...but then, the older servants had grown up with the old gods and worshipped them their whole lives, worshipped, brought offerings, joined in the festivals, even got married or had family members laid to rest by the Priests and Priestesses of the old gods. And the weight that this sort of legacy had could not be ignored. The Priestess smiled slightly, heartened against the odds that maybe, if the time came, some would come to her aid.

But the more specific questions were currently pressing, and the smile faded within a second from Zamara's fine features as she once more considered this strange visitor. Something here stinks...the stench of incense on a funeral pyre. The question is: whose funeral is it? She shuddered slightly, tightening her jaw, and turned back to Siamak. "Firstly, we need someone else who can help us. Another of the servants. I am aware of the risk this has," she continued, holding up a hand as the young man began to voice his concerns. "But we need someone who can be trusted to keep our secrets and get out of the palace into the city maybe, if the need comes. One of the chamberlains maybe?" A figure sprung to mind and Zamara clicked her fingers as she remembered the name an instant later. "Jarult! Was that his name? A chamerlain here, I remember seeing him when I came to speak to your mother, and at the banquet... What?"

Siamak was shaking his head. "No good. Jarult was dismissed some months ago, along with several other members of my mother's train."

"Surely not all of them?" the Priestess replied incredulously. "That old nurse, the woman who helped with Bekah's funeral proceedings, an...Alanzian." Realisation hit Zamara and she stopped, resignation streaming over her features. "She is gone as well, isn't she?"

Siamak nodded grimly. "Homay has gone as well; a rebellion against the palace some time ag..." At Zamara's alarmed face, Siamak halted, shaking his head hurriedly. "Never mind, I shall talk to you of that later maybe, now is not the time to be deviating. What do you think of the priest's supposed proposition?" Siamak's tone told Zamara of the prince's obviously dubiousness on the matter, but despite the young royal's uncertainty, she could not shake the hope that maybe, just maybe, this was something she could trust. When fear is flowing steadily through the cracks, one grabs any bucket that one can and prepares to bail like hell - sometimes regardless of what one might miss in the frenzy.

"I...I would like to meet him, Siamak."

The prince paused for a second, trying to arrange his next sentence respectfully: a strange role reversal bearing in mind he was potentially in line for the throne and she was a doomed fugitive. After a moment's diplomatic mental shuffling, he replied carefully, "Do you think that wise, Zamara?"

Zamara sighed deeply, shrugging her shoulders as she folded her arms tightly as if against a breeze, and turned back to the window, where no breeze stirred outside the window. It was quite early morning, several hours still to go until midday. Time for morning prayer, she thought, but her thoughts seemed almost detached from the reality of the silence where the singing of the priestesses and acolytes and the answering chants of Rea's priests should have wafted on the breeze to the palace on the soft spring breeze. But spring seemed not to have alighted on the city this year: the gay, gentle breeze did not stir the deadly still trees that now drooped in the Pashtian sun, and even the very birds, normally ready to come from as far as Alanzia simply to sing their harmless, cheerful tunes through the streets and courtyards seemed to have forgotten. Or been silenced.

After a silence so long that Siamak was about to prompt the Priestess for an answer, she replied, her voice like that of a school teacher. "Do you know, Siamak, of the great plague that hit Pashtia some two or three centuries ago? Nearly half the city was wiped out by it, and the arguements still rage about what caused such a terrible disaster. But whatever the cause, many cures were tried out: poultices of goats' milk and herbs, bandages of nettles, spells, prayers, chants... But do you know what it was that was found to work?" She turned her head to look straight at Siamak. "Rancid fat."

Zamara seemed to smile to herself slightly, turning back to the window as Siamak remained silent and puzzled at this bizarre, rather foul punchline. After a second, she continued, matter of fact yet thoughtful. "You see, Siamak, it seems that in times of direst trouble, it is not always beautiful and shining cures that can work - sometimes one has to try shadier and somewhat, may I saw, more dubious cures, in the hopes that maybe, just maybe...a solution just might be found."

The pair were quiet for a moment and Zamara turned fully to Siamak once more, smiling slightly at him in the silence where the birds and the bells should have echoed through the city. A moment later, Siamak grinned. "Rancid fat it is then, Priestess."